The present invention relates to a grommet. For example, the invention relates to a grommet that is provided between two fixing plates such as those of the body and the back door of a vehicle to protect a long member that is cabled between the two fixing plates.
As shown in FIG. 5, a wire harness 103 that is cabled between a body 101 and a back door 102 of a vehicle 100 is covered with a grommet 105.
Providing the grommet 105 between the body 101 and the back door 105 and covering the wire harness 103 with the grommet 105 prevents the wire harness 103 from being exposed to outside when the back door 102 is opened.
The grommet 105 has, at the two ends, a body-side fixing portion 111 to be engaged in a fixing hole 106 (see FIGS. 6A–6E) of the body 101, a door-side fixing portion 112 to be engaged in a fixing hole 107 of the back door 102 and a bellows-shaped connection pipe 113 connecting the body-side fixing portion 111 and the door-side fixing portion 112 so as to be integral with those.
The body-side fixing portion 111 and the door-side fixing portion 112 are approximately identical members. In the following, only the door-side fixing portion 112 will be described (the description of the body-side fixing portion 111 will be omitted).
To attach the grommet 105 to the body 101 and the back door 102, the grommet 105 in which the wire harness 103 is fitted is inserted into the fixing hole 106 of the body 101 from inside the body 101 as shown in FIG. 6A and then taken out to the space between the body 101 and the back door 102 as shown in FIG. 6B.
After a tip portion 103A of the wire harness 103 is inserted into the fixing hole 107 of the back door 102, the door-side fixing portion 112 is put into the space inside the back door 102 through the fixing hole 107 as shown in FIGS. 6C–6E. Then, the door-side fixing portion 112 of the grommet 105 is engaged into the fixing hole 107 of the back door 102, whereby the grommet 105 is attached to the back door 102.
As shown in FIG. 7, to allow the wire harness 103 to pass through and be held by the fixing hole 107 (see FIGS. 6A–6E) of the back door 102, the door-side fixing portion 112 of the grommet 105 is provided with an outer member 121 and an inner member 120. The outer member 121 has a pipe-shaped insertion portion 115 that is to be inserted into the fixing hole 107 and into which the wire harness 103 can be inserted, a brim-shaped dose contact portion 116 that extends outward from the insertion portion 115 and is to come into close contact with the front face of the back door 103, a pressure contact portion 117 that is provided outside the insertion portion 115 and is to come into pressure contact with the back face of the back door 102, and a groove 118 that is formed by the inside face of the close contact portion 116. The inner member 120 is generally shaped like a disc having a central opening and is inserted in the groove 118. The inner member 120 is provided outside a pipe-shaped guide portion 119.
In general, the inner member 120 is generally elliptical in a plan view. The inner member 120 can easily be inserted into the groove 118 of the close contact portion 116 of the door-side fixing portion 112 by first inserting a portion, on its major axis 120A, of the inner member 120 into the groove 118.
By the way, when a top portion of the door-side fixing portion 112 of the grommet 105 is inserted into the fixing hole 107 of the back door 102, the close contact portion 116 may hit the back door 102 as shown in FIG. 6C.
The projection width W1 of the inner member 120 is relatively small as shown in FIG. 8A. Therefore, should the close contact portion 116 hit the back door 102, the close contact portion 116 may be turned up to come off the inner member 120 as shown in FIG. 8B.
One method for solving this problem, that is, preventing the close contact portion 116 from being turned up, would be to set the projection width W1 of the inner member 120 large and thereby increase the overlap width between the inner member 120 and the close contact portion 116.
However, if the projection width W1 of the inner member 120 is set large, a top portion 116A of the close contact portion 116 may interfere with the back door 102 as shown in FIG. 6E increases, in which case the work of attaching the grommet 105 to the back door 102 would take longer time.